Dead Beat
by TheSocialBookWorm
Summary: When Tsuna's Sky flames manifested for the first time, it was because his Resolve and Will to live were more powerful than the seal holding them back. At least, that's what the survivors told him. All Tsuna knew at the time was that he wasn't going to let Kyoko get eaten by the undead. Roar, little lion. Roar.
1. Chapter 1

AN- Me: Chapter one. The chapter that just would not stop

Muse Kitty: Meow

Me: Another fic

Muse Kitty: Angry meow

Me: Fine. *Clears throat* *Cackles then runs away*

WARNINGS: Graphic Depictions of Violence, Gore, Character Deaths, OCs, and angst

ADOPTED from wolfsrainrules

Disclaimer- Reborn isn't mine. The idea wasn't even mine.

Chapter 1

It was one of the rare days where Tsuna wasn't running from bullies, or limping home from a beating just holding back tears. It helped that he was taking the day off from school with permission from his mom. He took a vacation day every once and awhile, when the whispers and shoves and insults threatened to break him emotionally. He had long since resigned himself to forever being Dame-Tsuna, but he wasn't going to let them ruin anything else after they trampled over his self confidence.

He sighed, kicking at a rock in front of him, and running a hand through his hair. Tsuna didn't know where he was going, just that he wanted to be out of the house and away from the school. The street he was on was packed with people going to work, school, or home, and he let the current of the crowd direct him. He kept his eyes to the ground as he walked, until he bumped into someone.

He glanced up, ready to stammer out an apology, but it died as he realized who he was talking too. The Namimori Middle idol tilted her head at him.

"Oh," she greeted him cheerfully, "Good morning Sawada-kun!"

"M-morning S-sasagawa-chan," he replied, giving her a short bow in greeting that she returned.

"What are you doing out here?" she asked, turning and starting to walk alongside him. He blushed, and glanced at the ground again.

"J-just going f-for a walk," he mumbled, trying his best not to embarrass himself again, though his shoulders slumped with a resigned air. It would probably happen anyway and then Kyoko would never want to talk to him again. She would probably start calling him Dame-Tsuna as well.

She smiled at him, and said, "Onii-san goes for a run every morning too! Is it something that boys do all the time? Spend time outdoors?"

Tsuna blinked, trying to figure out where she had connected the two as the girl chattered on about her brother and the other workouts that he did on a daily basis. He didn't even know why she was still talking to him at all.

"Ano," he cut in hesitantly, and Kyoko stopped her chatter to smile at him again. "Wh-why aren't you at school Sasagawa-chan?"

She clapped her hands together, "Oh, well I was going to meet some friends at a cake shop near by. They happened to have the same day off of school, and one of them I've only talked to online so I was so excited to meet them I just couldn't wait."

"T-that sounds nice," he said, giving her a weak smile in return. He wondered what it would be like to have friends. Would it be like right then? Walking and talking as they walked down the street, just without the underlying fear that anything he said could scare them off? Or would that fear be even worse because if he said the wrong thing than he would lose a friend rather than just the opportunity of one?

Kyoko started to chatter again, but in the middle of one of her sentences, a man came sprinting out of nowhere, shoving his way between the two of them roughly, a panicked look in his eyes.

"They're coming! They're coming!" he screamed before turning down a corner, his crazed shouts echoing in the distance.

A silence fell on the street before someone snickered. "Probably drunk," another one muttered and slowly everyone went back to their business. But Tsuna still felt an undercurrent of unease from everyone, and he was tense.

"Well, that wasn't very nice," Kyoko said with a frown, pulling him up from the ground.

"H-he sounded scared of something," Tsuna whispered, his eyes cutting down the alleyway that the man had burst out of. He could only make out slow movement in the shadows and couldn't hear anything of the noise of the street, so he brushed it off, turning away from it. "What d-do you think he meant by 'they're coming'?" he asked her.

"Maybe he had some friends that was excited to meet?" she suggested as the two of them started to walk again. Tsuna chewed on his lip as he thought. The man had sounded to scared for it to be something he was excited about. Tsuna couldn't bring himself to relax even when Kyoko grabbed his arm to tug him along faster. Normally, he would have been excited to be that close to his crush, but he was more relieved that they were moving away from the spot that the man had come from.

Something about the alley and the movement from it unnerved him, and he wanted it to stop.

They had only made it a couple of steps before they heard a woman scream. Instinctively they turned to see what was going on, and followed her pointing finger to the alley way. A small child shuffled out of it, groaning. She was covered in blood, a large bite mark on her neck and shoulder still bleeding so that it look flesh. Her yellow dress was torn in several places showing off her unnaturally pale skin. Her mouth hung open, and her green eyes were dull in a way that made Tsuna step back.

"Don't scare her like that," a woman snapped and stepped forward. Tsuna bit down the warning that sprung to his lips. He didn't like the young girl and he took another step back, the movement making Kyoko step back as well.

"Sawada-kun?" she murmured.

"Hey there," the woman said gently crouching in front of the child, holding a hand out, "Why don't we get you some help and then we can find your parents."

The child groaned even louder, shuffling closer to the woman. The woman smiled reassuringly at her, and as the child shuffled closer, grabbed the girl's hand. "See? It's going to be alr-" The woman was cut off as the girl surged forward with surprising speed and dug her teeth in the flesh of the woman's arm, She screamed as the girl ripped backwards taking a chunk of the woman's flesh with her, the muscles dangling from her jaws.

The crowd screamed, and everyone started to shove everyone else away from where the woman clutched at her bleeding arm. Several people fell as they were pushed in the confusion, and others were trampled in people's haste to get away. The groaning increased and more shuffling people emerged from the alley way. An old woman hunched over and missing an arm, her humerous bone shattered and sticking out at an odd angle. A middle aged man to her right, his stomach torn open and his small intestine trailing out behind him, leaving a bloody path like a snake.

Tsuna shoved the quaking Kyoko behind himself, feeling his own muscles seize at the sight. More and more of the strange people were pouring from the alley, and they tore into the woman and anyone else unlucky enough to be standing by it. Those still on the ground were simply sitting ducks that left blood and entrails scatter across the street. Tsuna grabbed Kyoko's wrist and dragged her away from the scene, ignoring the fluids that they stepped in to leave the carnage behind. He didn't want to think about what it could be.

He clamped down on the scream that threatened to burst from his lips, noticing that the undead followed after the people making the most noise. One unfortunately, heavy set man screamed profanities at them, and a large part of the horde descended on him. From where they were turning the corner, Tsuna could hear the crunch of bone as the undead already tore off his flesh. The screams turned even more high pitched until they stopped altogether.

Tsuna's feet slammed against the sidewalk as he sprinted away, Kyoko following after him. Whenever he heard groaning, he turned in the opposite direction, fear and adrenaline driving him to go as fast as he could for as long as he could.

"S-swa-ada-kun," Kyoko managed to say between harsh breaths. "I-I c-can't."

Tsuna pulled them to a stop in the shade of an empty alleyway, glancing in both directions, his own chest heaving before nodding his agreement. He leaned against the wall, gasping for breath, while Kyoko double over behind him, bracing her hands on her knees.

"W-we sh-should keep moving," Tsuna breathed after a few minutes when he speak without having to take a gulp of air between each word. The groaning echoed everywhere in Namimori, and Tsuna was worried for his mom, scared to death for them, and shaking at the very thought of running into the shuffling people again.

The groaning grew louder, and Kyoko nodded, the two of them flinching at the sounds of explosions and gunshots that were added to the cacophony of screams and groans. Tsuna wondered if Namimori had simply been transported to hell for some reason and that's why this was happening.

Clutching at each other's hand this time the two pre-teens took off once more only to skid to a halt after several feet, turning around the corner was a horde of the shuffling people, leaving bloody footprints behind them. The middle aged from before was leading it, his intestines torn off now, leaving only a gaping hole in the middle where Tsuna could see the bottom of his lungs and heart. He fought back the urge to gag, whirling around and running the other direction, Kyoko at his side.

They stopped in horror as another horde came from that direction as well, trapping them between two groups. Kyoko whimpered in fear, and they backed away from the second group, the groans ever present, grating on Tsuna's ears. Two pre-teens pressed themselves to the wall as far from both groups as they could.

Tsuna's eyes flickered around the buildings and alley for anything that they could use to escape, but the only ladder that was there had already been shattered, its wood long rotted like the skin on the shuffling people heading towards them.

Kyoko gripped his arm tightly, her knuckles turning white.

"I-I don't want to die," she sobbed, pressing her face into his back. "Onii-san!"

Tsuna was shaking, every part of him quivered in fear. He was Dame-Tsuna what could he do in this situation? Horror was pressing down at all sides, death was in the air, the smell of blood heavy, the tang of iron on his tongue.

But Kyoko was crying behind him, and his mother was waiting for him at home.

If he had been alone, maybe his resolve wouldn't have been enough. His mother probably would have expected him to die in the carnage, a predictable end for her no good son. He had no reason to live for himself. His life was one disappointment after another, never managing to get anything right.

Truthfully, he wouldn't have minded dying.

But Kyoko was behind him. The one person in the whole town who had never looked down on him, who had never called him no good, who had always greeted him with a smile was the one standing behind him.

Tsuna may not have been able to live for himself, but in every other world, in every other situation, it wasn't himself that he fought for, that he rose up for.

It had always been for someone else.

It would always be for someone else.

One of the shuffling people reached for Kyoko, and she screamed, flinching back from it.

 _NO_ _,_ Something in Tsuna shouted. _THIS IS NOT HOW IT WILL END. NOT FOR HER!_

And there was a crack sounding in Tsuna's ears as the world was flooded with orange.

The world swirled around him, a whirlwind of color. The shuffling creatures closest to them, something in him said they weren't people anymore, screamed in agony, before collapsing into ash around him. The world became sharper to his vision, the fear that had been clawing at him burned away to leave only the Resolve and Will to _get Kyoko out alive_.

He leaned down and flashed forward, moving faster than he ever had before, grabbing one of the creatures by the head, near the eyes away from the snapping jaw, and slammed it into the wall. It exploded with a crack and brian matter flew everywhere, but Tsuna was already moving again.

The creatures were slow until they got in range, where they moved with terrifying speed. So Tsuna would just have to be faster. He was a blur, ducking under snapping jaws, tearing of waving arms, and finally slowed to a stop in front of Kyoko when the alley way was clear.

He should have been breathing hard, but he wasn't, something warm in the center of his chest flowing out to the rest of his body giving him strength that he didn't have before. He grabbed her wrist again and led the stunned pre-teen away from the scene of massacre, headless of whatever caked his hands. They didn't move at a sprint, Kyoko wouldn't have been able to keep up, but they moved fast. Something in Tsuna whispered where to turn, the directions back to his house with the least amount of creatures in the way.

Their numbers seemed to be growing he noted from the calm he was in, and he could feel Kyoko still shaking in his grasp and that was all the reminder he needed. There was one small horde a block from his house, and he carved through it like he had the other one, leaving Kyoko a little ways behind him and away from the fight. The creatures actually faltered for a second when looking at him before continuing their shuffling forward. Kyoko would later tell him that his eyes had been gleaming a brilliant amber, the color of fire before it destroyed everything in it's path.

Destroy Tsuna did, before they were off again, running to his house, leaving another stack of bodies behind them.

They burst into his house, Tsuna already crouched low to defend Kyoko from any creature that could jump out at them. They stood there listening to the creaking of the door behind them before he straightened, closing the door behind them, and striding into the house.

"Mama?" he called, turning to towards the kitchen where frantic movement could he heard. Nana came rushing out, her hair in disarray and a wild look in her eyes. Her shoulders dropped at the sight on him, and the fry pan that she held at the ready dropped to the floor with a clang. Her apron was blood splattered, and her knuckles still white from how tight she had gripped the pan,

"Tsu-kun!" she cried, reaching out for him, and he stepped forward, gripping her tightly in a hug that she returned.

He stepped back and ushered both of the females to the kitchen, half listening to Nana babble.

"He just- The man just came in and- and he wouldn't stop! He groaned and he- he reached for me! So I hit him with the pan, but- but he wouldn't stop! I hit him again and again and again. I-I think I hit him in the head, and he-he collapsed, so I d-dragged him out back."

Tsuna nodded, carefully sitting her down at the table, and determinedly not letting his eyes drift to the stain on the floor that looked like drag marks. Calm was what they needed right now, and that was what they would have.

"Mama," Tsuna said, listening to the warm whisper that had kept them alive this long. "This is Sasagawa Kyoko. She's in my class."

Nana latched onto the normalcy like a lifeline, turning to the girl, and starting to ask her about her family and what she liked to do. Kyoko answered shakily, still terrified from before, but she was starting to calm down the longer Nana talked. Tsuna nodded to himself, and left them to it, heading upstairs, grabbing three bags along the way.

Tsuna started in his own room, grabbing only a couple pairs of clothes since the warmth was whispering that there were things more important than that. The next thing he grabbed was the first aid kit that he had hoarded in his room, stuffing it into the bag as well. Then following the warmth, he headed to his closet, and knocked on the back it three times, watching as it slid back. Any other time, he was sure he would have screamed, but the warmth left him strong and certain, so all he did was pull the gun and ammo out carefully, setting the safety and adding it to the bag as well.

He went to Nana's room next, grabbing clothes for the females as well as any medical and feminine supplies that he could. Then he spent the next ten minutes wandering the house and pulling out the various caches of weapons and supplies. He ended up grabbing a fourth bag to hold them all as well as all the canned food in the house.

He slung that one over his shoulders, heading back to the kitchen with a small armoury on his back, and the other three bags in his hands. Nana was trying to get Kyoko to eat some leftover food from the fridge, rice balls from the look of it. They seemed to have calmed down a little bit though they were still jumping every time the groans grew louder.

Tsuna handed them the three bags, and they took them carefully, standing up when he nodded and motioned for them to follow him. He took a moment to study their stair banister, before ripping part of it out of the wall and handing to one of the girls to carry. He would do it, but he needed his hands free for when they stepped outside.

Nana seemed to understand what he was thinking, even if he didn't and hurried upstairs before coming back with a pile of metal poles from the curtains and shower. She nodded at him and gave him a strained smile, and they were off, Tsuna leading the way.

They stepped outside to an empty street, and they hurried in the direction Tsuna led them, towards the loudest groans for once. The girls gulped but followed after him, trusting that he had a plan. They would occasionally stop at houses that were silent and grab more poles or anything that looked like them along the way, until Kyoko and Nana couldn't carry anymore and still move at a reasonable pace.

The females faltered for half a second when they caught sight of the horde that was surrounding the building Tsuna was leading them too. It was packed, the creatures pressed up against one another, and stretching out for almost a whole block. A few in the back were already turning to face them, dull eyes focusing unnervingly on them.

Tsuna turned to them, his eyes still gleaming amber, and pinning them with unnerving focus as well. "Do you trust me?" he asked. They nodded, their eyes darting back and forth between him and the creatures, but Kyoko relaxed as she remembered what had happened in the alley.

"Of course Sawada-kun!" she chirped, giving him the same brilliant smile that he had gotten when they ran into each other before the chaos broke out.

He nodded back at them and said, "Then just run for the entrance of the school, don't hesitate and don't look back."

They nodded again, and when he turned and rushed forwards, they were right behind him for as long as they could.

Tsuna knew that he would have to work in a circle, that once they reached the center of the horde there would be the most danger, but as he tore the jaw off of one creature and threw it back into the group before flitting to the creature behind the females and delivering a devastating kick to its head, he thought that they could manage it for now. They could only move so fast, weighed down by the supplies they had, but they kept a steady pace forward, Tsuna a blur once more as he kept the area around the non combatants clear.

He rushed forward again to clear the next space, when something yanked on his back, leaving him sprawling on the ground. One creature had managed to get its arm tangled up in his bag, and he hissed in a mix of anger and fear. He rolled out of the way of the shorter creatures that tried to descend on him blocking out the screams of his name from Nana and Kyoko.

The creature on his bag was pulled with him, until its arm was simply ripped off, the rotting flesh unable to take the strain. Tsuna swung the bag off his shoulder and hurled it at a creature that had once again gotten too close to the others. The moment flung the creature back, giving him the time he needed to sprint up to it, and crush its head with his hands.

He picked up the bag and simply flung it at the door, listening to it clang against it before he went back to work, keeping the girls safe. It took an excruciating fifteen minutes, but they made it to the door, which Nana flung open and they all piled in.

Tsuna grabbed his bag, pulled it in and slammed the door shut and shoved one of the poles into the handlebars to keep it closed and another one just in case. Then the three of them turned and began to head deeper into the school. Every door along the way was shut in the same manner the entrance was. The poles wouldn't hold for long, a couple days at most, but it would slow the creatures down which was all they needed.

On the third floor, they were greeted with a near feral Hibari, who swung his tonfas first and asks questions never in the defence of his territory. Tsuna ducked under the strike, deflected the one from the women, and despite the heaving of his chest, looks the Committee head in the eyes. The room held its breath as the two most dangerous people in the room stare each other down. After a long moment, Hibari lowered his tonfa, Tsuna nodded, and the whole room relaxed.

Glancing around at the terrified remnants of Namimori Middle, Tsuna's warmth murmured to him.

 _Here_ _,_ it said reassuringly, _Here they will be safe. We are done for now._

Grateful, Tsuna let go, and sank into oblivion.


	2. Chapter 2

AN- So there will be OCs, but I wanted to play with some of the minor characters in the series first.

WARNINGS: Graphic Depictions of Violence, Gore, Language, Character Deaths, OCs, and angst

ADOPTED from wolfsrainrules

Disclaimer- Reborn isn't mine. This idea wasn't even mine.

Chapter 2

Tsuna woke up to bright silver hair in his face. The face connected to it looked vaguely familiar, though Tsuna's pounding head did nothing to help him remember why.

"Thank you for keeping Kyoko safe and bringing her back to me!" the boy screamed in his face, and Tsuna fought to keep the wince off of his face as the volume caused his head ache to spike. He was thankful to whoever thought to put him by a wall so he could use it to prop himself up because his muscles felt like someone had taken a cheese grater to them for a couple of hours.

"You're welcome," he croaked out to the boy that he struggled to remember the name of, who grinned sunnily and bound off, probably to Kyoko now that their short interaction was done for now. Tsuna's warmth whispered that he would be back, that there was something special about that boy in particular.

Tsuna ran a hand through his hair as he glanced around the near empty classroom that he had been placed in, noting the few other people that were laid out and fast asleep as well. He shakily pushed himself into a standing position and slowly made his way out of the darkened room, flinching against the light in the hallway.

Most of his memories of the day before were blurry and he struggled to piece them together because he knew that they were important. He leaned against a wall and tried to steady his rasping breathing, and caught a glimpse outside of the window.

He reared back at the sight of the mass of bodies pressing against the building and even from his distance he could make out the smears of blood on them and on the ground around them. A memory of him crushing a skull between his fingers flashed through his mind, and his stomach churned. As he slowly recalled what had happened yesterday, he collapsed, his legs no longer able to hold his weight and he curled into himself.

The warmth in his center became frantic, trying to remind him that those things out there weren't human, that he wasn't a murderer. It tried to remind him to breath as his vision tunneled.

 _Tsuna! Ts_ -una!" another voice cut into his panic, and his head snapped up with wide eyes fighting back tears. Yamamoto stared back at him, his own eyes wide as well. The other boy reached out and gently pulled Tsuna's hands away from where they were practically tearing out his hair, and grinned shakily.

"I'm pretty sure that we have scissors in the supplies somewhere," Yamamoto said, trying to be cheerfully, but not quite making it with the way that his voice shook like his smile. "It's a much more comfortable way to cut your hair."

Tsuna sighed, dropping his hands to his sides, and closed his eyes. His head leaned back against the wall, and quietly he said, "Thanks Yamamoto-san."

He knew that the other boy was trying to lighten the tension, and he was thankful for that even if all he could really think about was how easy it was to tear human bodies apart, the motions replaying in his head over and over again.

A nudge to his shoulder snapped him out of his spiralling thoughts and he blinked slowly when he realized that Yamamoto had sat down next to him so they were shoulder to shoulder. The other boy's grin grew a little bit more steady when he noticed Tsuna looking at him.

"What you did yesterday was awesome," Yamamoto said, turning back to look ahead of them. They were low enough that they couldn't see out the windows behind them, or through the door across from them. There was a low murmur of voices away from them that Tsuna assumed came from where everyone else in the building was, and he fought down nausea at the reminder of his ruthless trip across the town.

"You managed to keep two non combatants safe!" Yamamoto rambled on, and Tsuna felt himself start to relax at the fact that he was being praised for the fact that he had protected people rather than they way he was fought. "Even Hibari struggled with keeping everyone safe when it first started, but you made it look easy!" Yamamoto laughed, "You should have seen the look on everyone's faces when we realized you were making your way over! I don't think I've ever seen everyone so surprised."

Yamamoto rambled on as Tsuna slumped almost bonelessly against him. He wasn't really listening to what was being said, just the cheerful tone of voice and cadence that he could focus on until he didn't feel like he was going to fly apart at any moment. Mentally, he could understand that he did what he had to do yesterday, that he had acted in the defense of others. But he struggled with it emotionally, leaving him drained.

Tsuna snapped awake at a sudden change in the atmosphere around Yamamoto, his half lidded eyes narrowing in on the baseball player. He didn't say anything, just stared at Yamamoto, his eyes glowing a bright amber as the warmth directed him once more. A part of him wondered why he was even listening to it, but he stomped down on it. The warmth was what had kept his mother and Kyoko alive. It was what was allowing them to survive right now, and if it wanted him to wait for Yamamoto to talk then he would be willing to wait for days.

Yamamoto shifted uncomfortably at the look in his eyes, and shrugged. "I just- I hope that my dad is alright."

It hit Tsuna like a punch in the gut. He was just sitting on the ground feeling sorry for himself and worrying about his actions, but at least everyone he cared about was safe. He was being selfish and unreasonable when most of the other kids, teachers, and people who were now living in the school building had no idea if their friends and family were even still alive.

He clenched his fists, heedless of the strange look that Yamamoto sent him, and heaved himself to his feet once more.

Yamamoto blinked and scrambled after him as Tsuna made his way down the hall. Tsuna could barely make out his reflection in the windows they passes, and caught up in his Resolve to help didn't think anything about the color his eyes had changed to. His swift steps echoed in the near empty building and Yamamoto flinched when Tsuna turned bright amber eyes on him.

"The supplies that we brought?" Tsuna asked, unaware of how his voice had changed, that he was holding himself differently, ignoring the pain in his muscles and moving as if it wasn't there. "There were three bags. Where are they?"

"They would be with the rest of the supplies, where most of the survivors are," Yamamoto answered, half a step behind Tsuna. "But why? Tsuna? What are you doing?"

The smaller boy didn't answer, following his ears to the classroom and sliding the door open. All of the conversation stopped as Tsuna stepped into the room, scanning it. His eyes caught on the pile of cans and bags, striding over to it calmly. He plucked the bag he was looking for from it ignoring the protests and questions, upending it so all of the weapons fell out. The clatter of guns, knives, and ammo covered the gasp from that he assumed was from his mother.

He selected two of the longer knives and offered them to Yamamoto hilt first. "I believe that these will suit you more than a gun will."

Yamamoto stared at them for a long moment before something lit in his eyes and he took them, giving them a couple of test swings as Tsuna took a step back.

The baseball player laughed, his eyes too cold for the wide grin on his face. "It can't be too different from baseball or cutting fish for sushi right?"

"Tsu-kun?" Nana asked, stepping away from the group of girls she had been talking with to approach Tsuna .

He turned to look at her and nodded, "We are going to look for more survivors."

The room exploded into noise. The teachers protested the danger of it, while several of the kids asked if he would look for their parents, friends, and family. Tsuna took it all unflinchingly, and instead turned to Hibari who had materialized in the doorway. Part of him wished that he could save everyone that they wanted him to right now, but he needed to take it one step at a time. There were just too many, and it killed him to think about it but it would be impossible to make it to everyone in time.

"How many survivors do we have right now?" he asked the Committee leader in a normal tone of voice, but with enough power that he could be heard over the clamour of the room.

The question and answer clearly rankled the dark haired teen, his hackles raising, but he bit out a, "39 with the new herbivores you brought in."

Tsuna nodded as a somber tone fell over the room. Namimori middle had never been a large school, but it wasn't small either. It held an average amount of about 250 students a year, with a solid 45 faculty members. Hearing how little of them survived the first onslaught was disheartening to say the least.

Tsuna cast his eyes around the room again, noting that there were only four adults total to offset the thirty five kids. It was nowhere near enough people to restart any sort of life when they finally found their feet.

He nodded his thanks to Hibari and tried to move past the teen, who solidly put himself in the way.

"What are you doing Omnivore?" Hibari demanded, his arms crossed over his chest. Tsuna cocked his head to the side and tried to figure out what Hibari wanted. The normally apathetic teen was well know to only care about Namimori as a whole rather than the individuals liv- Ah. It clicked for Tsuna. Namimori as a whole was practically gone, overrun by inhuman things and her citizens at their mercy. The Middle School and the people in it were the only things left that the prefect could protect. Losing anyone now would be a failure on his part.

Tsuna cocked his head to the side. "I am going to protect Namimori's future," he said, caught in between serene and resolute. "How long do you think a small group like this will survive? Longer perhaps than a larger group, less danger in smaller numbers. But how long until people lose hope? How long until we can't progress any further forward?"

Tsuna didn't know anything about running a town, or being a leader, but he knew that this was important. That people worked harder if they had something to work for, if they could live rather than just survive. He wasn't going to let anyone feel what he did every day of his life.

Hibari dropped his arms, and pulled out his tonfas from where ever he kept them. Tsuna made no move, something telling him that Hibari wasn't going to attack.

"Now wait a minute," a voice cut in, and Tsuna flicked his eyes over to see Mochida stalking over to where the three other males hovered in the doorway. His hands were shaking from fear most likely, but the kendo player was resolute. "You both can't be thinking of leaving!" His tone reached a higher level at the end of his sentence, and he took a visible fortifying breath.

"What if something happens to you?!" he continued, clenching his fists. "What something happens here?! What would the rest of us do?"

"And only a monkey like you would suggest that we only send two people out," another voice cut in again, and Hibari bristled at all the intrusions. The dark haired girl walked over, her arms crossed, and Tsuna recognized her as Kyoko's best friend, Hana. "I can understand drawing the line at three, the absolute minimum and maximum we can send out right now."

She brushed a strand of hair behind her ear, her eyes daring anyone to contradict her logic. "Two is too little because if something happened, then they'd be stuck and have no way of letting us know that something went wrong. Three means that one person can be sent back for help while the other two find a nearby defensible position. Any more than three right now, and we lose too many people when we can't afford it."

Yamamoto's laughter cut through the tension like a knife, and he grinned at them all. "Wow Kurokawa-san! I don't think I could have thought of that!"

She scoffed, "Of course not. You're all monkeys."

Hibari scoffed as well, but tucked his tonfas out of sight and stalked away. Tsuna took that to mean that he agreed with Hana's logic but didn't want to say it out loud.

"But that means we still need one other person to come with us," Yamamoto continued as if one member of their conversation hadn't just up and left, and one of them had insulted his intelligence.

Both Tsuna and Hana turned to stare at Mochida, who rolled his eyes and threw his hands in the air.

He snarled. " Fine. Fine! I'll go. I am one of the best at kendo after all. Do try to keep up." He stalked out into the hallway, before stopping and crossing his arms. "Where are we going?"

Yamamoto laughed again, and bound after the other teen, leaning an arm against his shoulder. Mochida shrugged him off, and snapped something to the baseball player, who only laughed.

Tsuna turned to look back at the room again, at the students huddling together in groups, and the few adults trying to comfort them despite their own fears. He took a deep breath, and walked over to his mother to give her a hug before turning to leave. He clenched his fists near the doorway and declared quietly, almost to himself, "I'm going to save as many of them as I can."

He hurried to catch up to Mochida and Yamamoto, unaware of the way the view of the people behind him shifted. Had they not seen him rip through the undead themselves they may have doubted it. He was only Dame-Tsuna after all. But he had already saved other people, something only he and Hibari could claim. They had seen what he could do, and not one of them doubted that he would continue to do it. He was supposed to be the lowest of them all, the weakest and the least capable, but he was already doing more than them.

"You know," one of the boys, Ushio, murmured from his spot near his older brother, "the only place from rock bottom is up."

* * *

Tsuna took the lead once he caught up to the other two, and turned down the hall towards the staircases. He stopped at the sight of Kusakabe, who stood with something wrapped in white sheets in his arms and a tired slump of his shoulders. He nodded at them, and shoved the thing at Mochida.

He stepped back when the other teen took and sighed. "The remains of the Committee have finally set up blockades that will last for more than a few hours. It would be appreciated if you didn't ruin that. We will try to have a way for you to get back in if you come back though."

Tsuna nodded ignoring the if included in the statement, and Kusakabe turned his attention to Mochida who had pulled the sheets off and was running a hand over the shinai.

"We managed to grab a couple of them before we were forced to retreat to the higher floors," Kusakabe explained. "Kyouya mentioned you were leaving and I thought it would help." He nodded at them and wished them good luck before disappearing in the direction they had come from. Tsuna hoped that he was going to take a nap with how tired he looked.

"Well Dame-Tsuna," Mochida said, holding the shinai by the handle. A portion of his usual confidence and arrogance seemed to come back to him now that he had his usual weapon in his hands. "How are you proposing we leave now?"

Tsuna simply pointed up instead of down. "The roof," he said, turning to head up the steps as Mochida gaped at him and Yamamoto chuckled.

"That's insane!" the kendo captain protested, "It's way too high up and there's no other building close enough to even think about roof hopping. As if we could do that in the first place."

"Come on," Yamamoto cheered as he followed after Tsuna, "It'll be fun. Almost like a videogame!"

"Life isn't a videogame!" Mochida snapped, but stuck with them anyways, "Life has actual rules that need to be followed. We could die doing this!"

"Is your Resolve stronger than death itself?" Tsuna murmured, wondering where he had heard it and why he thought it was a good response to Mochida's worry about death. He thought that it was from some sort of shopkeeper but he wasn't sure.

The moaning that assaulted their ears when he pushed open the door to the roof killed any sort of response the other two had. Mochida tightened his grip on the shinai, and Yamamoto's grin fell. Tsuna walked to the edge of the roof and pushed on the fence until he found a section that was rusted and fell away underneath his hands.

Two hands raced out and snatched him from the edge when he stumbled, and Tsuna nodded at Mochida and Yamamoto, both of whom had gone white. He leaned over the edge slightly, ignoring the noise that came from Mochida's throat and glanced down the side of the building. He pointed that the window sills that he could see.

"A controlled fall from here," he said confidently, "Grabbing onto the first, second, and fourth sill will get us to the ground safely. I can go first and clear the landing area."

He didn't wait for the other two to answer, the warmth reassuring him that they would follow, and vaulted himself off the roof. Wind rushed past his ears, whipping his hair and drowning out the moans for a second before he reached out and scraping his hands on the brick was wrenched to a stop as he clamped down on window sill. He hung still for a second, his momentum causing him to swing.

Tsuna glanced down at the undead who were starting to congregate towards the spot he would land and let go, aiming for the next window sill. His fingers scraped again, bits of his skin peeling off and his shoulder felt sore on top of everything else, but Tsuna was busy calculating the best angle to fall at in order to take out the most of the creatures.

He sailed past the third sill and held onto the fourth for only a fraction of a second, barely long enough to slow himself down before he hurtled to the ground. He twisted his body and lashed out with his feet, landing in a crouch on top of one of the creatures and not taking a moment to catch his breath,

The creatures charged him, and Tsuna lashed out, focusing on clearing the area around the windows. There was a thump behind him, with some heavy breathing before a wooden shinai was swung past his side to help him fend off the creatures.

"I am never, ever doing something like that fucking stupid again," Mochida grit out through his teeth as he took a place beside Tsuna. "That was recklessly dangerous, and I had a heart attack Dame-Tsuna. I'm fifteen! I shouldn't have heart attacks!"

Tsuna's reply was to speed around him and smash one creature's skull against another to keep the kendo captain from getting bit. The captain yelped, but brought his weapon down on another one, and a distant muted part of Tsuna noted that this was easier than fighting them alone.

Another yelp echoed above them, and they both glanced to see Yamamoto lose his grip on the building, starting an uncontrolled fall. Tsuna's eyes flickered over to Mochida, whose jaw jumped as it clenched, but even as pale as he was he increased the vigor of his attack.

Tsuna took the opportunity to pull himself away from the combat and raced towards the building at top speed, planting his foot against the school, and propelling himself upwards as far as he could. His arm reached out and grabbed Yamamoto at the same time the baseball player reached out for him.

Another kick against the building sent them hurtling towards the ground at an even faster speed, but at a more manageable angle, and Tsuna's feet slammed to the ground with a jarring impact.

He dropped Yamamoto, his hands ripping at a creature's jaw as it lunged at his face. He kicked it away, and idly tossed the jaw back into the mob of writhing creatures, and crouched over Yamamoto, ready to defend the other boy until he could defend himself.

Slightly behind him, he could hear Mochida swearing as he tried to make his way to them. "This is such bullshit! I know that was against the laws of physics! You should have broken your damn legs!"

Tsuna blinked at him before starting to carve his way through the creatures towards the street. Yamamoto laughed, pointing out how awesome that jumped was while Mochida covered their backs, groaning about their insanity all the while. Tsuna didn't mention that while he hadn't broken his legs, the fall had damaged them, but his Will to help Yamamoto pushed him forward past the pain. He had to get the baseball player to his father and nothing would stand in his way, let alone non-serious injuries. He was so focused on that, he missed the impressed but worried looks the other two sent him.


End file.
